


Hammer Time or Paper Covers Rock

by elbowsinsidethedoor



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen, exchange of interest 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-13 10:49:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14747411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elbowsinsidethedoor/pseuds/elbowsinsidethedoor
Summary: Sameen Shaw and Harold Finch taking a somewhat awkward but sincere step toward friendship. Set between "Aletheia" and "4C" in Season 3.





	Hammer Time or Paper Covers Rock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justjoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justjoy/gifts).



Arthur was gone and John had left, again. Harold was feeling more alone than he had in a very long time. Loneliness was a state he thought he had become immune to in the years since the accident, learning to live as a ghost.

Apparently, he hadn’t learned well enough. Or, he considered in the stillness of the library, he had allowed himself to forget some of the hard-learned lessons.

He and Bear, who was now sound asleep in his bed nearby, had walked slowly that morning, lingering near pay phones; Harold almost hoping for one to ring. The machine had answered with silence. He’d come to the library anyway, hoping to find comfort among the books, a feeling of being centered in work. Instead of focusing, his mind had drifted.

The end had come peacefully for Arthur. It had been soothing in a way, for Harold. He was grateful to be with him, to see him go gently, to know his brilliant friend had breathed his last in the company of someone who cared for him. Very grateful that Arthur had not lived his final days in torment at the hands of Control and her henchman. His gratitude for that mercy, however, had given way to sadness. Being reunited with Arthur, even for a short time, made him feel the isolation of his own life more keenly when he lost him.

His reunion with Arthur wasn’t the only brief moment of light that was lost. John, who’d fled in grief and anger after Carter’s death, had come back. But not for long. Harold was feeling his absence in ways that he frankly had never anticipated. Added pressure in working the numbers, that he’d expected, but not … the emptiness in between. He hadn’t realized just how much a part of his day to day life John had become. Shared meals. Walks with Bear. His presence during quiet times in the library.

“I am inordinately happy to see you, Mr Reese,” he’d said when John and Fusco appeared in the midst of the crisis. An understatement. The elation was short-lived as he was forced to accept that John was not staying.

He sat in front of his computer but didn’t touch the keyboard. He gazed at the bare glass board across the room.

“What’s up, Harold.” Shaw’s voice broke the silence and Harold jumped in his seat. Bear leapt up from his bed, tail wagging.

Damn the woman's stealth. She was like the proverbial fog stealing in on little cat feet. If only he could bell the cat. His impulse was to scold her but he stopped himself -- regarding her curiously as his heart rate settled.

What was she doing here?

She plunked a bag on his work table and a cardboard tray holding a couple of cups. One was her coffee, he assumed. The other was from the vendor in Washington Square where he frequently bought tea. That surprised him. The bag, judging by the grease stains on the paper (and Bear’s interest in it) held some sort of food.

She was dropping down to her knees to greet the dog. Harold had to smile, in spite of himself, at the sight of Bear’s joy. She hugged him and scratched his ruff and Bear squirmed with delight in her arms, pretending to bite her and bumping her with his nose.

“There is no new number,” Harold said. “If that’s what you’re asking. I certainly would call you, Ms Shaw, if there was one .”

He wanted to say, why are you here, but it seemed rude somehow. She looked up at him like she’d heard him ask it, anyway.

“With the big guy AWOL, I figured you might need reminding I’m around. Doesn’t he always bribe you with donuts to get first crack at the numbers.”

She couldn’t be serious, could she? He found her thought processes mysterious, at best. He remembered when she’d considered his urging her to see a doctor to be some sort of punishment for failure. What had she said, “You can’t bench me just because I made a mistake.” It was an idea so far from what he’d intended that he could hardly credit it.

Her expression now was hard to read. He eyed the grease-stained bag. Not a particularly appetizing sight. Did she honestly believe she needed to bribe him with sweets?

She snatched the bag off the table, giving him a look just shy of an eye roll, and pulled out an old-fashioned cake donut. She broke it in two and half of it disappeared into Bear’s mouth. She took a big bite of the other half. “He likes ‘em,” she said, around the mouthful of food.

Harold winced involuntarily at the crumbs that escaped her lips. He wanted to protest that Bear shouldn’t be eating donuts, but the words died unspoken. His dog was looking at her with eyes of love. She was looking with equal enchantment at the Malinois. Harold couldn't resist the charm of it, the affection in it. Bear hadn’t looked this happy in a long time. Ms Shaw rarely looked happy, except in the company of Bear.

He reached for the cup of tea. It felt reassuringly warm.

“Sencha, right. One sugar,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “That’s exactly right. Thank you.”

With some care, he folded back the opening of the paper bag, unwilling to reach in until he could pluck out a donut without soiling the cuff of his shirt. “A box makes them a little easier to handle. For … future reference.”

“I got napkins.” She reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a scrunched ball of paper. She peeled one napkin off the clump and set the rest on the table in front of him. Harold tried not to think about what other kinds of things might have been stashed in that pocket at one time or another.

Maybe she'd come just to see Bear, but it seemed she was trying to be friendly. Possibly, the crack about John bribing him was her way of covering for an overture that she wasn’t quite comfortable making. He could certainly sympathize with feeling awkwardness in human interactions, though his own discomforts had a different source. She was pulling a chair over to the table. Normally, when she showed up at the library, she paced while she got briefed, or played with the dog, leashed him and took off.

Harold helped himself, carefully, to a napkin and was relieved to see it was clean, if wrinkled.

He had compared her to a hammer, in contrast to the subtlety of John Reese, and now it occurred to him that she was as forceful and blunt socially as she was in a fight. But a hammer had its virtues. She was powerful, sturdy, and reliable, qualities to be valued in an ally … and indeed, to be treasured in a friend. Perhaps rock, he thought, would be a more apt analogy. There was a solidity to her. And I, he decided, taking a bite of the very simple, but satisfying donut, must be the paper.


End file.
